Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Nearly 30 years after it was implemented and with every passing year, the Sunshine List is becoming increasingly irrelevant, says AMAPCEO, the union representing more than 17,000 professionals working in the public interest in Ontario.
The 2024 Public Sector Salary Disclosure—known by most as the Sunshine List—lists all those public sector employees who earned $100,000 or more in 2024. The publication of the list is mandated by the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, passed in 1996.
“It was designed to make transparent the salaries of a few big fish—top earning executives,” AMAPCEO President/CEO Dave Bulmer said. “Not the thousands of small fish who keep Ontario's public services running.”
The number of employees on this year’s list is especially high—at 370,000 names, it is 25% higher than that of the previous year—as it includes the retroactive pay for many AMAPCEO members, the remedy for the government’s unconstitutional wage restraining Bill 124.
AMAPCEO has long called for the list to be indexed to inflation.
"By not adjusting for inflation, the list now includes those earning the equivalent of $54,000 in 1996 dollars—hardly the province's top decision-makers," Bulmer said.
Bulmer also points out the government’s hypocrisy on its plans to update MPP salaries after a 16-year freeze, but not the Sunshine List.
“The government knows a lot of things have changed in the last 16 years, let alone the last 29,” Bulmer said. “If they can bring those up to date, why not the Sunshine List, too?”
AMAPCEO has also advocated that the Sunshine List be anonymized, save for the highest-earning executives.
“Let’s make the Sunshine List useful again by removing everyone’s names except for those at the top where transparency is necessary,” Bulmer said. “It would also help protect public servants’ privacy.”
In 2018, AMAPCEO helped a member whose stalker used the Sunshine List to find and harass her.